ThereSHOULD be only one four o’clock in any normal day and of course that is 4pm.The only time I can accept 4am is if I’m going fishing! So when the 04:00 alarm
sprang into life, instead of cursing it, I found myself with a big silly grin
all over my face. I was getting picked up by Andy in half an hour and I was
going back to Austria! GTFI!

Checking
in with Lufthansa is a doddle and we were ‘flying’ (pardon the pun) right
up to the point where we went through towards security. The queue was right
back to practically the check-in desks! FFS! How the hell would I get my cheeky
breakfast beer in before flying? Seemed like an eternity to get to the security
scanners themselves and then Andy got stopped as he had set off the alarm.
Several more minutes passed while the guard checked him over. It’s amazing how
thirsty one can become in just a short period of time, but finally the guard
decided Andy was not a terrorist and let us get to the bar.

Sorted!
Even had time for a bacon butty and another Stella before tottering off to find
the gate. Took off late and arrived bang on time – German efficiency in action.
If only the hire car companies could get it right on the ground. The queue
stretched back about as far as it did for the Manchester security gates.
Eventually we were off and running in the hire car and heading for our
destination just above Mayrhofen. I remember quite distinctly Andy telling me
that he’d been to Austria five times and never seen a cloud. Last year’s
weather had been incredible – scorchio – but for the last 30 miles or so it had
been absolutely pissing down…

We missed
the final turn off the main road and had to go quite a way before we could turn
round. I saw ‘another’ river in the valley and it looked as if it was in proper
spate. “Which one is that?” I asked. “That’s what we are fishing” Andy replied…
Oh dear! Traditionally the first thing we do on arrival is to take the short
walk to the bridge and check out the river – our so-called ‘Bridge Dangle’ –
but we didn’t need to see it to know what it would look like. We could HEAR it
from the hotel car park. It was absolutely raging!

These
were the views up and downstream from the bridge. (Remember these as there will
be comparison pics later). The water was opaque, several feet higher than
the previous year, and really hammering through – more suited to white water
rafting than some gentle dry fly fishing. I don’t know what Andy was thinking
but I was firmly in the “Fuck me, we’ve no chance” department. We checked in
and loaded the car with just the fishing gear. It was still raining. We had
come here to fish and that’s what we were bloody well going to do. “Let’s
check the confluence upstream” I suggested, “Maybe it’s just one of them that’s
buggered”…

Erm… No.
Here’s said confluence: both rivers buggered. It was clear now that we would
have to go right to the very top of the system, almost to the Italian border,
to have any chance of a fish on our first afternoon. It’s not a long drive,
through a tunnel, up a hill, past a reservoir and carry on upward until you run
out of road. Quick look off the bridge? Don’t mind if I do… Fearing the worst
but hoping for the best we ran through the pissing rain for another bridge
dangle and… it looked good! Yes it was really high and raging, but at least it
was clear enough. We decided to give it a whirl.

We were
considering trying our tenkara rods but the strong downstream
wind made up our minds and we kicked off with short western outfits armed with
a big sedge apiece at the business end. It became immediately apparent that
there was NO fishable water in the middle of the stream and that we would have
to look for the tiny pockets – such as they were – tight into the banks. Soaked
to the skin and fishless after the first quarter of an hour I was ready to pack
in and go for a beer, but then I had a slash at the dry fly and missed a trout.
It was enough to focus my mind back onto fishing and told me at least some
of them might be prepared to have a go. A few casts later and I caught my first
trout of the trip. All five inches of it, with a size #12 sedge hanging
out of its mouth. I told you these fish are hungry! Then Andy had one and we were
off and running. Fish were not nearly so numerous as the previous year but at
least we had a few each. My most interesting capture was this one which I
sight-fished from a tiny back-eddy. It took ever so slowly and I’m sure must be
a trout-eel hybrid. Have you ever seen anything so skinny?

As we walked back to the car after a couple of hours, the rain which had
been falling incessantly through the afternoon seemed to intensify (if that
were possible) and there were rivulets of flood water flowing everywhere –
across and down the footpath, out of the stones and there were some serious
cascades coming down off the high Alps. Check this one out…

There was an awful lot of water still to flow into the river, which was
already high. What would it possibly look like in the morning? We decided it
was best not to think about it and just have a meal and a beer or two at the
hotel. Early nights all round given the daft time we’d had to be up…

The Friday morning sky didn’t look too bad at all – despite the forecast
of more heavy rain – and we were up in high spirits for a bridge dangle before
breakfast. This is the view up and downstream from the town bridge:

That’s more like it. The river was looking more like a river again and
had fallen sharply. It had also cleared nicely and pockets were starting to
appear everywhere. Nice one! We decided to go downstream to a new stretch (to
me) and one that Andy had only ever fished once previously. There’s a bridge…
naturally… and we had a quick look off it before kicking off. I knew the river
was well down but check this out – it must have fallen three feet overnight!

With little wind and a nice wide bit of river we decided to put up the
tenkara rods. I fished tenkara on the afternoon of our last visit and was really
pleased with the presentation and stealth I could get with the method. Mine’s a
12′ 7:3 rod and Andy’s is a 13′ 6:4 so he had more reach, but I had more
control with anything on the other end! Fish were in a feeding mood and no
mistake. Perhaps they had been without their last few meals in that floodwater?
Whatever the reason they were certainly ‘on it’ from the word go. By the time
we’d covered the distance between the bridge and where I took this pic from,
we’d had about 40 fish each!

There was no let up; they just kept coming and coming. We had fished for
no more than an hour and the limiting factor to our catch rate was the time
taken to clean, dry and treat the flies again. We had taken separate sides
of the river so we each had fresh water and could have the craic as we fished
up. On occasions a sexy looking pocket would appear mid-river and whoever was
first to it would put the fly through. There simply weren’t any fish there.
They were all hugging the edges still, despite the drop in the level. Maybe
it takes them a while to recolonise the centre of the river? As we were
debating this point we each noticed that the river was once again rising and
colouring up. Bugger! Luckily there was the bridge for Andy to get back across
to the car otherwise he’d have had no chance. It was a raging torrent
again!

We went away upstream and found low and clear water again. Where had
that flood come from? We were still within the main river so how was it low and
clear here and flooded out below? But then we remembered the river is
controlled and has two reservoirs on the system. It must have been a controlled
release from one or the other reservoirs in response to all that rain. Perhaps
they were nearing capacity? Anyway, whatever had caused the rise, had
thankfully fucked off and we had a proper river to fish once more. The trouble
was, there were no fish AT ALL. Not a one. Nowt, zilch, nada and zip. Well if
it’s fallen away again, let’s get back downstream to another section and get a
few more fish eh? Good call!

Clear once more and back to something like the correct level and we were
back among the fish straight away. If anything, we had more in the afternoon
than we had in the morning. All slightly different looking, all with slightly
different markings.

Packing up at beer o’clock and we had one last bridge dangle for the day
and were amazed at what we saw. It had rained virtually all day and yet the
river had dropped again and another good way too. I took this pic because the
big grey stone in the very foreground was UNDERWATER when we had arrived. Can I
get a ‘wow’?

We went down into Mayrhofen that night for a pizza and it was still
raining, but the spicy pizza and the cold beer went down a treat. There must be
something about the mountain air (and to be fair, it’s rather strenuous
fishing) because we were both knackered and hit the hay early once more.

We fished upstream from the town taking ‘sides’ where we could (and
turns where we couldn’t), and swapping from the sides we’d fished the previous
year which put me on the right hand bank looking upstream. It was amazing
fishing. When we broke for lunch we had over 100 trout between us and I’d lost
a monster brown. I had it on for quite a while and couldn’t get it anywhere
near my hand or net. Andy offered to try to net it, but it slipped the hook. We
put it at around 2.5 to 3lbs and it certainly by far and away the biggest I’ve
seen there.

Obviously neither of these is anywhere near that size but I put them in
because they’re both pretty fish! And because I didn’t manage to get a pic of
the two pounder I did manage to land a little while later. Had it ready in the
net, iPhone poised… and it wriggled free before I got a shot off. Hay ho! It’s
not all about the pic and it was a cracking trout. You’ll just have to take my
word for it! At least here’s a shot of where the big guy lives!

And that last pic is just my shit attempt at an arty one! Both the black
and white rocks were right next to each other in an otherwise uniform river bed
of grey. I thought the contrast worthy of a pic and it’s my blog so there!
Anyway, back to the story… The rain hadn’t been so bad during the day and had
completely stopped by beer o’clock. Even the cascades coming down off the
mountains looked less ‘full’ than the previous days and the forecast for Sunday
was hot hot hot!

The (barking mad) folk embarking on the Steinbock Marsch would be
partying and it would be rude not to join them for a bit of Oom Pah Pah action
washed down with schnapps and more beer. But yet more rain had forced them all
indoors and what had been a swinging party the previous year looked like this
that evening:

Not exactly swinging is it? So we welched out early and went back to the
hotel. I needed to tie a few more flies on bigger hooks. We were already using
big flies, but I’d had an experimental go with an even bigger one earlier and
it had produced the bigger trout… Rigged up the vice and tied a few of these on
size #10 hooks. They looked the bollocks but would the trout agree?

We met a young Dutch lad Philippe on holiday with his girlfriend and it
turned out he was fishing in the morning too. We had a bit of a chat and
offered a few words of advice. I also gave him a few of the flies we’d been
catching on. We wished him good night and tight lines for the next day…

Sunday morning dawned as per forecast and I pulled back the curtains to
see this magnificent sight. GTFI! Where’s the suncream?

We started just below the infamous ‘brookie pool’ of the previous year
and got straight into the fish despite the rather chilly start to the morning.
Although the sun was shining from a cobalt blue sky, it doesn’t get to the
bottom of the valley until late morning. I hadn’t even started fishing myself
when Andy ran down the bank shouting excitedly, holding a fish in his
net and wanting a photo. He’d only gone and bagged another brook trout.
Bastard! There’s really not many of them in there and catching one is a real
bonus…

As we approached brookie pool itself, Andy once again kindly let me in
first, and once again I took a brownie first cast. His first cast
produced…another brookie! BASTARD!!! (Only joking mate!) I took hundreds of
photos but these few should give you a flavour of a superb morning’s
sport.

We caught fish steadily all the way upstream despite the overhanging
trees and somewhere well above the town in a nondescript pool I hooked something
a little different to the small brownies we’d be having. This fish bent the
poor tenkara rod into a ‘zero’ shape and jumped three feet in the air. Rainbow!
Big rainbow! I threw the camera to Andy to see if he might get some action
shots and then tore off down the river after the fish (which to be fair, was
doing the same thing!) Time and again it went around rocks and over waterfalls
into the pool below. There was obviously little chance of landing it… And yet,
five pools below where I’d hooked it, I did finally manage to get my arm around
the leader and bring the fish gently into the net. Here’s Andy’s action
sequence of pics as it happened:

BOOM! That’s a special one! A fish like that and I had no inclination to
carry on. Andy wanted to try my rod out so I let him have a go and just watched
for a while. “Fuck it” he said after catching a few quick fish, “Let’s go for a
beer”. I heard that!!! He later said that he’d really enjoyed the morning…but
was suffering slightly from ‘Fish Envy’ LOL!

Cheers all! One happy lad here! (And one with a mild case of Fish Envy!)
The afternoon session was also a blast with us on a new stretch (again, for me)
and another sackful of fish. The revised larger sedge was doing really well as
was something else… For most of the trip we had been using Gink as a floatant
on the flies as they first went on the leader then Frogs Fanny as a desiccant
to revive them after they’d taken a fish (wash, dry, refloat). But it was time
consuming, especially when you consider it had to be done after just about
every fish. Step forward Mr Cliffe and take a bow for your suggestion of trying
Loon Payette Paste. I’ve used it for floating lines and leaders before, but
never on flies for some reason. Well let me tell you it works a treat. It works
FAR better than Gink IMHO and I think I’ll be converting to it from now on.
Instead of only being able to catch one fish and then needing treatment, the
Payette Pasted flies floated high for between 20 and 30 fish
before requiring any attention. A revelation!

All the river looked like this:

And all day long, the sun did this:

Happy happy days! Another couple of hundred fish between us, a couple of
brookies for Andy and my rainbow. We were seriously buzzin’ at dinner. Philippe
was too. He had caught quite a few fish and was really pleased with his day. He
was amazed at our catch though and wondered whether he could come with us the
following morning as an observer. He also offered to be our chief photographer
and bring his DSLR along. No worries pal. See you at breakfast!

Monday morning looked ok through the window and the forecast wasn’t bad.
Philippe came down to breakfast in his waders he was that keen! We decided to
fish from where he’d finished the previous day back up to town in the morning
and then Andy and I would go solo for a short afternoon session. (Philippe has
all the shots of the morning session and I will update the blog with them if
and when he sends them through). It’s a prolific stretch we were fishing, but
something wasn’t quite right. We were getting fish, but not very many . I
couldn’t explain it at all and it was eagle-eyed Philippe who first
spotted the otter tracks in the sand by the side of the river. Cheeky little
fucker! Getting up before us and stealing or scaring our fish! Lol. No it’s ok,
I don’t begrudge a wild otter its breakfast at all, and it wasn’t long before
the tracks faded away and we started hitting a few more fish.

Andy gave P his first ever tenkara lesson and he took to it really
quickly landing quite a few fish throughout the morning. Every now and then
he’d cross the river and try either my rod or Andy’s and all the rest of the
time he was snapping away. I’ve seen the pics and they are really good. Hope he
manages to get them to me…

Not far below town I spotted a trout tight against a wall. It looked to
be a decent fish and was active below the surface. Popped the sedge on his nose
and up he came. And refused it! Steady on! Don’t you know who I think I am?
Lol! So I popped it across him again, with the same result. He was interested
but something wasn’t quite right. I changed the fly for another, exactly the
same but unused, and one that I had Payette Paste’d the night before. Bingo!
First cast with the ultra high-riding fly and he nailed it. The first jump told
us all that it was another rainbow and another reasonable fish too, and while
it never left the pool, it was a spectacular fight nonetheless!

There were three happy but tiring (well two of us were at least)
fishermen who met up with P’s girlfriend for a cheeky lunchtime beer… They were
going sightseeing that afternoon but Andy and I were going fishing! One
final session in one of the many gorges. It was a bit of a trek but we got
going about 1pm and decided to knock it on the head at 3pm.

I think (for those ‘friends’ and/or ‘followers’ on Facebook and Twitter)
I said that I ran out of superlatives for the place. It is stunning and so is
the fishing. We had a mad couple of hours scrambling up the gorge and catching
a good number of fish. I had a third, smaller, rainbow just to ram home the
rainbow advantage (mind you, Andy did me 2-0 on the brookies!) and as we
approached the bridge where we’d parked the car a vicious downstream wind got
up from absolutely nowhere. Now our lovely long tenkara rods were a serious
hindrance and not the tools of stealthy drag free presentation we’d been
enjoying for most of the time. Andy did really well to snare this lively one
right at the death.

That last few minutes were seriously tough. I wondered whether I’d get
‘one last trout’ to finish on… In the bridge pool itself, I saw a fish just
below the surface. It was on the fin and high in the water. That’s my last fish
of the trip I thought, and here it is!

Then it was a blur of back to the hotel, shower, pack, eat a late lunch
and away for the flight home. I always like to start and finish a fishing trip
on a beer and Andy knows this only too well. Here’s the last beer of the trip
and for those of you who managed to get to the end of yet another JT ‘War and
Peace’ job, I thank you for your patience! I will probably be running some
hosted/guided trips over there next summer so if you’re interested please
let me know. Human beings only please and NCA as ever!